The Berklee College of Music has withdrawn its plan for a 35-story tower in Boston’s Back Bay.
Berklee School of Music’s plan for a 35-story tower in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood has hit a sour note.
David Hornfischer, the college’s vice president for administration and finance, withdrew the proposal last week following months of discussion with the Berklee Task Force. The 16-member panel, comprised of representatives from neighborhood groups, was appointed by Mayor Thomas M. Menino to advise City Hall and the Boston Redevelopment Authority on the concept.
“The task force told us loud and clear that our proposal was too dense and too tall for that location and they asked us to consider other sites,” Hornfischer said. “The whole project is in flux right now.”
Last year, Berklee proposed a high-rise that would have replaced a pair of buildings the school owns at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Boylston Street. Under the plan, the Berklee Performance Center and a 2-story academic building that once housed State Street Bank would have been razed and replaced with Berklee Crossroads, a 450,000-square-foot facility with 600 dormitory beds, two new theaters and a student center.
But reaction from the neighborhood was swift. While task force members support the idea of housing more students on campus, many feared the $120 million high-rise would have been out of scale for the neighborhood
Hornfischer told the panel that he is in discussions with the nearby Church of Christ, Scientist, about purchasing a pair of buildings on lower Massachusetts Avenue. If the church were willing to sell the 2-story properties, Berklee would consider a plan that would raze those buildings and replace them with two 6- to 10-story facilities.
In addition, he noted, Berklee is one of four finalists to purchase an 11,000-square-foot lot on Cambria Street adjacent to the college that is owned by St. Cecilia’s Church. If the school were the successful bidder, Berklee would consider expanding its campus on the site, he added.
During a two-hour task force meeting last week, Hornfischer asked the panel members if they would write a letter to St. Cecilia’s in favor of Berklee’s bid for the parcel.
While several panelists said they approve of the idea, Boston City Councilor Michael Ross said any support for the purchase should hinge on Berklee’s commitment to sell the property it owns at 98 Hemenway St. to a developer willing to convert the dorms into condominiums. The idea, he said, is to boost the number of homeowners in the Fenway neighborhood. Today, the homeownership rate in the neighborhood is about 50 percent, among the lowest in the city, he noted.
Ross cited data that shows 2,155 Berklee students live off campus. Of that number, 894 live in the Fenway, according to statistics the school provided to the city. The report also found that nearly 11 percent of Fenway residents are undergraduate students who live in the neighborhood.
“Fenway has the largest amount of students and it’s the most impacted neighborhood,” Ross said. “If our goal is to pull students out of the neighborhood and put them into dorms, it won’t happen because if Berklee sells any of [its] buildings, another institution will come along and buy it. If 98 Hemenway is sold, and Berklee has said [it is] hoping to sell it, we should make sure that this property becomes residential housing and not dorms for another school.”
Dorms a Priority
Timothy Horn, a task force member from the Fenway Civic Association, supported Ross’ suggestion.
“We need homeowners who are invested in the Fenway neighborhood,” Horn noted.
Other members of the panel were sympathetic. But some opposed Ross’ motion to a write a letter to the church that would support the sale only if Berklee agreed to sell the 98 Hemenway property for a condo conversion only.
Hornfischer said the school’s first goal is to find space for its students who live off campus. He said the school has been having conversations with the Fenway Community Development Corp., a nonprofit housing developer, about the possibility of buying 98 Hemenway if and when the school has more student housing.
“It sounds great and we’d like to do it, but we have to get on with building some dorms first,” he said.
Berklee’s enrollment has increased by 40 percent over the last decade to 4,000 undergraduate students. At the same time, the school’s space grew by a modest 14 percent. The expansion would include student centers, an improved technology wing and more performance and practice space. Only 800 students live on campus in three dorms and the goal is to house 2,000.
Founded in 1945, Berklee College of Music calls itself the world’s largest independent music college for the study of contemporary music. The college has nearly 4,000 students and 460 faculty members. Among Berklee’s most prominent alumni are producer/arranger Quincy Jones, singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge, Steely Dan frontman Donald Fagen and guitarist and “Tonight Show” bandleader Kevin Eubanks.
The task force is expected to meet again early next year.
